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Americans warned not to drink hand sanitiser after four die

Americans are being warned not to drink hand sanitiser after four people died and three were left with visual impairments.Americans are being warned not to drink hand sanitiser after four people died and three were left with visual impairments.

Fifteen people, all adults, suffered methanol poisoning after drinking alcohol-based hand sanitisers in Arizona and New Mexico in May and June, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

Methanol is deemed "not acceptable" by the US regulator Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Alcohol-based hand sanitisers approved by the FDA must contain only ethanol or isopropanol, but some products imported into the country have been found to contain methanol, the CDC added in a report.

It warned that severe methanol poisoning can result in blindness or death, and asked people to check whether their hand sanitisers contained methanol.

An earlier CDC survey taken shortly after US president Donald Trump publicly asked whether injecting disinfectants could treat coronavirus found more than a third of Americans misused such products to try to prevent infection.

The researchers said their findings point to the possibility of more cases in other states, and recommended that safety messaging to avoid ingestion of any alcohol-based hand sanitiser product should continue.

Reference: Evening Standard:  Patrick Grafton-Green 7 hrs ago: 8th August 2020